mistakoala

Does it account for performance artists sitting down in front of the bus to protest about something or other, though?

I see. So I still can't quite jump right in and start making a basic app. No worries!

Total n00b here.I took a look at Creator and it looks straight-forward with its drag and drop approach, but do I need to know more (e.g. a language or the Ionic framework) before I can do anything useful with it?

Very seasonal business and I'd be surprised if it was ever >50% occupancy under the current owners.

Blackpool's season for many overnight accommodation businesses has gone from April-November to just school holidays and major events.

The annual accounts/report must make for tragi-comical reading.

Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by cheap package holidays to the sun.

Partly. Other resorts have managed to reinvent themselves, but the perception I have is that our local tourism trade took things for granted, didn't innovate and assumed there'd still be millions of overnight visitors to cash in on.

It's a very parochial place and despite all our problems and examples like this popping up periodically, as a town we still seem to maintain a collective belief that it's a great place to live/visit and "everywhere has its problems", with Blackpool just being hard done to.

Many of these small hotel and B&B owners run their businesses as a hobby or retirement plan, which often doesn't quite pan out as the passive income scheme they were anticipating. They don't cope with the responsibilities that entail and can't compete with professional hoteliers who understand visitors slightly better, so they end up chasing the bottom end of the market (it's not unusual to see rooms offered for £10/pppn. The lowest I've seen is £7/pppn).

Doesn't sound so dissimilar to the EU's Internet tax that was planned years ago (not sure if its email tax plan was part of the same thing). I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that this plan would get some support at European level.

In the UK our last government imposed an Internet tax, but at a flat monthly rate. Fortunately, it was scrapped.

Google is a “platform for piracy and the spread of malicious networks”

So, like Sky Broadband in the UK, then?

Sky's apps are the same. As a Barclays and Sky customer, this is a ball-ache. Barclays I can kind of understand, because progress in British retail banking happens at a snails pace, but I was surprised at Sky crippling their apps in this way.

A really easy one: no.

Yep - exactly that.

Is labelling not a good?

No, it shouldn't. As much as I also dislike the Continental love of the ban hammer, I'm not sure what it has to with this.

I wonder if a successful TTIP agreement would be the catalyst for this? It's inexplicable that the EU/ EEA would allow for non-metric goods to freely flow into the market.

I am optimistic enough to believe that this would be worth looking at, but I am pessimistic enough to believe that it would not get a moment's consideration in a risk-averse and/ or litigious society.

Sure. I like the sound of encouraging people who want to explore and jumpstart their own projects. I feel that there's an implicit push by bootcamps to acquire students who are certain about going on to developer roles, so to see a programme welcoming students with ambiguous objectives is good to see.

What have previous cohorts gone on to do?

Lemmeguesswithoutclicking... Mariana Mazzucato?

I suppose it pays for me to read beyond the headline!

Interesting. Why would The Graun bin the article?

This is already being worked on by car manufacturers, as part of the EU's eCall agenda, which will be a requirement for future vehicles. Remote control of vehicles is simply an extension of the telematics system used to introduce and implement this.

I was actually more surprised that both Gov and BBC used the term 'hack' in a context that didn't involve 'cyber-crime', but I wasn't sure how to fit that into a headline.

They can prise my sugar... from my cold, dead hands.

Best news all year!

I had asked booth groups and they each answered, “Dreamweaver.” “Oh. Nice.”, I thought, trying to hold back any laughter that I may have had.

I'm sort of glad he didn't win (I know - aren't I a terrible person?), if that was his high-handed attitude and dismissal of a tool that lets designers make sites... by hand.

I recognise that tech has its politics and is rooted in it to an extent (Cypherpunks etc). I'm not particularly against that or blind to it.

What I dislike is the braiding of tech with identity politics issues by people who are unaccommodating, and hostile in their language and behaviour, if not their motives. Here, I feel that SJW is an apt description for people whose interests are primarily identity politics. It's not a term that I apply universally.

Sons made her point in a thoughtful way. She was not hostile (explicitly or implicitly). If there are issues regarding identity politics and tech, I'd rather hear about it from people like her. The pity is (in an awkwardly expressed way), because of her position, she doesn't necessarily want a platform from which to say things on these matters because she doesn't frame her experience in terms of gender (and that seems to carry through into the comments).

Nope. It's not a view with claims that I've seen expressed before. To me it is an original viewpoint.

IIRC, Switzerland reserves certain rights on immigration.

I groaned at what sounded like another SJW article on 'teh evil patriarchy of technology'.

I'm glad I read on for an interesting and original viewpoint.

More Susan Sons' and fewer Adria Richards', please. The former have meaningful and constructive contributions to make while the latter just make political hay for their own self-interest. As a learner, the perception of an increased emphasis on identity politics is off-putting to me. Not because I secretly want to have a career and interest in tech to further my patriarchal tendencies, but because it's shifting attention away from the interesting stuff - the stuff that makes tech fun and interesting in the first place.

Journalists are now bought and paid for by rich patrons.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that activists use it as an instrument of storytelling their agenda. It's even worse when it masquerades as 'quality' journalism, dressed up in broadsheet (or more to the point, Berliner format) and verbiage.

I feel that there is just too much of the wrong motivation behind 'journalism'.